Mosquito season on its way

Wednesday

Apr 3, 2013 at 9:07 PM

Though the it may not feel like it right now, mosquito season is on its way.

By MARK SPENCLEYmark@cheboygantribune.com

Though the it may not feel like it right now, mosquito season is on its way.Each spring, millions of mosquitos hatch in northern Michigan, bubbling up from nearly every pocket of standing water. To limit the number winged blood-suckers, area residents should be hoping for a warm up, followed by a few hard freezes.“It will kill some, but not all of them,” said Mike Kaufman, a Michigan State University research entomologist. Some is better than none, when it come to getting rid of mosquitos. What many people don’t realize is there are different species of mosquitos that hatch and different times in northern Michigan. So, a spring cold snap might get rid of one batch of mosquitos, but there will be many more on the way.According to Kaufman, most of the mosquitos plaguing area residents each spring didn’t even hatch this year. They are holdovers, adult mosquitos that made it through winter.Scientifically, mosquitos breakdown into several species, but for the average person simply looking for a way to avoid them, mosquitos boil down to two groups, summer mosquitos and spring mosquitos.As their names suggest, one group hatches in the spring while the other hatches in the summer. Though their bites are equally annoying, the two species differ greatly.“Spring mosquitos winter as larvae and then hatch in the spring,” Kaufman explained. “They only hatch once and are a little more sensitive to temperature.”This spring hatch is the one vulnerable to a warm-up followed by a cold snap. Once spring mosquitos hatch, they hang around until mid- to late June and in some instances overlap with summer mosquitos.Though spring mosquitos are the first to appear, summer mosquitos are a much more formidable army. They start hatching when the water temperatures approaches 70 degrees and they keep fortifying their ranks.“I think summer mosquitos are much worse than spring mosquitos,” Kaufman said. “They have multiple generations, while spring mosquitos only have one. As long as there are wet areas for breeding, summer mosquitos will keep producing.”Not only are summer mosquitos more numerous, they are usually more aggressive as well.“Spring mosquitos usually don’t bother you too much unless you venture into their habitat. I mean, they can be aggressive, but more so when you go to them,” Kaufman explained. “Summer mosquitos will travel as much as 5 or 10 miles looking for a feeding host.”With summer right around the corner, many area residents are looking for preemptive methods to keep mosquitos at bay before they become a problem. Unfortunately there isn’t much.The market is saturated with gadgets and gizmos guaranteed to eliminate nuissance mosquitos, but they are mostly ineffective, according to Kaufman.“A good deet-based repellant is the best thing to use if you’re going to be outside gardening or doing things,” he said. “There are tons of thing out there that you can clip to your shirt or hang on your deck, but for the most part, none of them work.”Kaufman also suggested elimination stagnant water whenever possible.